The Holdovers is the best movie of the year

It's a scene too pointed not to underpin the entire movie. Young Alex Ollerman, forced to spend the winter holidays at school, is curled over his bare hand after another kid has ripped off his mitten and tossed it in a lake.

"Twisted orphan lost your glove on purpose," spits our actual main character, Angus Tully. "Left you with one so the loss would sting that much more."

And with dramatic flare you could swap nearly unnoticed into Oppenheimer's brooding IMAX closeups, Alex runs to the icy shore, hesitates only a split second, then pitches in his remaining glove. He stares angrily, pained, directly into the camera. And then, as the folk music plays, we crossfade into the rest of The Holdovers.

What could this moment mean for the three inmates we follow at this 1970s prep school, each struggling with past mistakes and tragedies?

For Tully